Your Shadow's Halo
A Moment of Science

Your Shadow's Halo

B2Upper-intermediateNovember 5, 20262 min
  • Science

Your Shadow's Halo

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Your Sainted Shadow on today's moment of science. In the record of his life at Walden

, . ,

he wrote, I used to wonder at the halo of light around my shadow. Thoreau was probably

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0:00

Your Sainted Shadow on today's moment of science. In the record of his life at Walden Pond, Henry David Thoreau reported on an odd phenomenon. As I walked on the railroad causeway, he wrote, I used to wonder at the halo of light around my shadow. Thoreau was probably seeing a phenomenon called Heiligenschein, which is German for halo. This is a glowing

0:28

sunlight around the head and shoulders of your shadow. These days, it's likely to be seen by early morning golfers on dewy grass. Where does this halo come from? Your shadow's halo is made by something called backscattering.

0:43

This happens whenever sunlight enters a dewdrop. The sunbeam enters the front of the drop, then a certain amount of light bounces off the back. This light streams back out the front, almost exactly in the direction it came from.

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